


En Passant

by weakinteraction



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: F/M, Getting Back Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14970650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: A TV reporter brings those involved in the Merano tournament back together for a retrospective.





	En Passant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



> Many thanks to Morbane for very helpful comments on a beyond-last-minute readthrough.

As the doors of the train opened, the overheated air within rushed out and mingled with the cool Tyrolean breeze. Florence adjusted her sunglasses and stepped out onto the platform, pulling the small grey wheeled suitcase behind her.

When she saw the slightly battered sign on the platform saying "Merano", she couldn't help but stop and stare at it. It felt undeniably strange to be back here, after all these years. So much had changed, so much water had flowed under so many bridges, but this was a place that loomed large in her memory. So much had taken place here in so short a time, had in many ways set the course of her future. There were only two places that felt like they had an even greater gravitational pull on the course of her life: one was Bangkok, where everything had come apart a year later; the other was, always, Budapest.

She had left her return travel plans open, giving herself the option of travelling on from here instead of returning home to California immediately. She still hadn't decided whether or not she wanted to. She'd taken her father, back at the end of the nineties, when he'd still been well enough to travel. It had been almost magical, but how much of that had been about the opportunity to see it through his eyes? Things she barely remembered had come alive as he'd told her story after story of her youth -- and his, before she was even born. Such a contrast to the way that he never spoke of what had happened to him in his decades in the camps.

Lost in her thoughts, it took some time for her to realise that someone from the station staff was speaking to her, almost too fast for her rusty Italian to keep up with. It was clear that he was trying to help, and as she tuned in she picked up more of what he was saying. Had she got off at the wrong stop, and would need to wait for another train? Or had she gone too far and needed to turn back? He was afraid that he might need to charge her an excess fare, in that case.

"Miss Vassy!" The voice was coming from a way down the platform. "Miss Vassy, it's me, Elisabeth. I'm sorry I'm late."

And here was the cause of her return: the bright-eyed girl, who must have barely been out of diapers when the Merano tournament took place. Florence had tutored her in chess in her teenage years, but she had ultimately not pursued it to a competitive level. Instead, she had gone on to a career in journalism.

The man was speaking to her again. "'Miss Vassy'? You are Miss _Florence_ Vassy?" he said, in clear but heavily accented English.

"Yes," Florence said, forcing the weariness she felt out of her tone. "Yes, I am."

And then he was shaking her hand, saying, "It is a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Vassy. I was there for the tournament all those years ago."

"I wasn't sure whether people would still remember," Florence said. She didn't want to say that she had hoped that they might not.

"Of _course_ people still remember! That tournament was one of the most exciting things to happen in Merano for many years." He grinned. "And you, Miss Vassy, the cause of the Russian's defection ..."

"Well, I'm not sure--"

He laughed. "How long ago was it?" he asked. "It must be more than twenty years, I think. I was a much younger man--"

"Twenty five years this July," Elisabeth said. "That's why we're here now; I'm making a documentary celebrating the anniversary. Now, thank you very much for your help, sir, but I really need to get Miss Vassy to her hotel."

"Of course, of course," the man said. "A real pleasure, it is very good to have met you!"

"Thank you," Florence said, and then again to Elisabeth, more quietly, "Thank you."

"No problem at all, Miss Vassy," Elisabeth said.

"You really have to stop calling me that," Florence said. "Please. 'Florence' will do just fine."

"Well, I should try and get used to it," Elisabeth said. "I am going to be calling all of you by your first names at the panel tomorrow, after all. Gives everything a more ... intimate feel."

"I'm not even sure anyone knows what Mr Molokov's first name is."

"Oh, he's not coming," Elisabeth said. "It's a pity. I wanted to have both the players and both the seconds, but--"

"But I'm the real story, not Molokov."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," Florence said ruefully.

* * *

Florence hadn't planned to take a nap. Once she'd unpacked, though, the bed looked so inviting after the long journey that she found herself lying down. Just for a moment, she told herself.

When she woke up again, it was too late to get food in the hotel's main restaurant, but they assured her that she would still be able to order something at the bar.

The decor was old-fashioned, almost studiedly generic: all padded seats with red cushions, dark wooden furniture and golden trimmings that gleamed where they'd been polished to within an inch of their lives.

The bar was nearly empty -- this was not a busy time of year, with no more skiing to be had but the summer still months away -- so they took her order almost immediately when she sat down on one of the many stools. She was just beginning to regret not bringing her book when Freddie appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a crumpled suit, his tie pulled apart slightly to allow the top button to be undone. The bad boy turned into the roguish older man.

 _Middle-aged_ man, Florence corrected herself. He was only a year or two older than her, and she _certainly_ wasn't old.

There was a long pause, both of them sizing each other up. Florence was reminded of the start of their games, the way he would stare at her unblinkingly if she tried an unusual opening, as though he could see into her mind to work out what she was planning, the way she would refuse to flinch under his gaze.

Eventually, he gave a deep bow that she was fairly sure was at least partly sarcastic. "Miss Vassy," he said.

"Mr Trumper," she replied.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he said, sitting down next to her before receiving a reply.

"Be my guest," she said anyway.

They sat next to each other in silence for a while. It ought to have felt awkward, Florence though, but somehow it didn't. In the past, Freddie's silences had been indicative of his moods. Now it just seemed companionable.

"How's your chess column going?"

"Nationally syndicated," Freddie said with a hint of his old smugness. He smirked at her. "Do you read it?"

"Only if I've finished the crossword in good time," Florence replied. "I'm not sure your general audience are as interested in what draw death might mean for the game as you are."

Freddie laughed. "You still play, of course?"

"I keep my hand in," Florence said. "Let's not compare rankings, though, shall we? I spend a lot of time tutoring."

"I'm sure you're just as patient with your charges as you were with me."

"I don't remember being patient with you."

"But I do," Freddie said, with sudden sincerity.

"Well, I guess there was that time at the US Championship in '77."

"When I had to bail you out?"

"The whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. I never _asked_ for that stuff, it just _appeared_ at the table."

"I should have left you to have a night in the cells," Florence said. "Except then you'd probably have lost the next day."

At that point, her food arrived. Freddie took the opportunity to order a whiskey on the rocks. He seemed confused by the euro notes, still crisp from the ATM, and she had to help him leave the right amount for a tip.

"I preferred it when you could be a millionaire here with just a few hundred dollars," he said quietly as the barman slinked away.

"Speaking of which, why have you gone along with all this, Freddie?" Florence said in between mouthfuls. "Lord knows you don't need the money."

"And you do?"

She didn't want to talk about her father's medical bills, the way the usual problems of old age were complicated and exacerbated by how he had been treated in the camps for decades. "Answer the question."

Freddie looked at the ice cubes in his drink as though they were going to tell him a secret. "Do you really want to know?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

"My old contract with Global TV. They retained an option to my services for commentary or other chess related work. But chess stopped being quite such compelling TV after it stopped being yet another proxy conflict."

Florence frowned, puzzled. "I thought Global went bust after--"

"After the Cold War ended and the CIA didn't need a propaganda channel?"

"Well, I wasn't going to say that."

"We both know who Walter really was," Freddie said with just a hint of bitterness. "But the shell company got sold to a conglomerate. Got to make the best possible return on those taxpayer dollars, even if they were funnelled through a black budget. And in the bundle were the rights to three more appearances from Mr Frederick Trumper, chess genius and controversialist. For a while I just assumed they'd never use them, and then eventually I forgot about it entirely. And then Miss--" He wiggled his fingers, as though grasping in the air for the name.

"Rainier," Florence supplied.

"Miss Rainier phones me up out of the blue and tells me whichever successor to the successor to Global it is would like to exercise their option for the purposes of a retrospective on the Merano tournament. We're history now, it seems." He looked straight at Florence. "What about you? How did she get her claws into you?"

"She's an old student of mine, would you believe?"

"That seems like too much of a coincidence," Freddie said. "Then again, there have been plenty of things that weren't coincidences in our lives, haven't there?" He downed his whiskey. "Is she good?"

"She'd have done all right for herself at the Women's Open, I think," Florence said. "But in the end she wasn't interested." It was a pity. For a moment there, Florence had seen some real potential there. She was certainly the most gifted player she'd worked with in the last ten years, possibly even since Freddie himself.

"How do you think she got Sergievsky?"

"Money, I suppose." Florence didn't want to admit to herself that she hoped it had been the possibility of seeing her again that might have induced him to come. But it was over a decade now since the USSR had collapsed, the Wall come down, and she had never heard from him.

"I would have thought that AI company were paying him enough to stay comfortable, to play against their machines all the time."

"Have you seen him?" Florence asked. "Have you seen Anatoly?"

"No," Freddie said, "but I've looked over some of his games against the computers."

"I meant since you arrived here at the hotel," Florence said.

"Is he here too?" Freddie looked surprised. "I assumed that ... well, I assumed they would put us in different hotels. Like back at the tournament, I suppose. Silly of me." He shook his head.

"So, do you think there are enough people really interested in the story of the Merano tournament to make Elisabeth's documentary worthwhile?" Florence asked.

"I may have been out of the TV game for a long while, but I did learn one thing," Freddie said. "Factual stuff is dirt cheap. No actors, no sets, no props ... Believe me, even with all the flights, the fees they're paying us--" Florence wasn't sure if she was getting the same as Freddie or not, but even though she rather doubted it, the amount of money involved was eye-watering from her point of view "--on some accountant's spreadsheet somewhere, this is going to go down as an inexpensive schedule filler."

* * *

The cramped green room was well-stocked with mineral water, but very little else. Florence found herself wishing for something stronger.

She had shared a cab from the hotel with Freddie, but he had been much less communicative than the night before. When they had arrived, Elisabeth had already been here, all broad smiles and enthusiasm.

Florence felt tense at the prospect of seeing Anatoly again, for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. But as the clock ticked closer to the time they were due on stage -- Elisabeth was going to moderate a panel discussion in front of a live audience, which would provide the bulk of the present-day footage for her film -- he still hadn't appeared.

And then, just as Elisabeth was starting to look just a little concerned, he arrived. Florence felt her heart involuntarily skip a beat; he was still _him_. Still the man she had willingly thrown away a life for, and then -- less willingly, but knowing it was the right thing to do -- sent back to his old life.

Anatoly smiled at her, a warm and genuine smile, but not the smile of someone filled with the expectation of a reunion with an old lover. She smiled back, tight-lipped.

"So, now that we're all here," Elisabeth said, "let's just make sure we're clear on the basics. We're going to do this panel in front of a live audience, but for the version on TV we'll be intercutting it with archive footage, some analysis--"

"Who?" Anatoly asked.

Elisabeth blinked. "Sorry?"

"Who will be doing the analysis? Schmidt? Ivanov?"

"Oh, sorry, I meant historical analysis," Elisabeth said. "The wider context of the Cold War, the SALT talks ..."

"But not chess analysis?" Freddie said.

"I don't think there's anyone better than the people we have here in this room to provide that," Elisabeth said. She smiled at Freddie, and he smiled back.

For a moment, Florence began to suspect that he had found it easier to accept his contract being reactivated when it came with a flirtatious young woman attached. Then she chided herself, remembering how she had felt when the world had seen her presence at the tournament as being for reasons other than that she was a serious chess player. Elisabeth was just as dedicated to her chosen profession as the young Florence had been to chess.

"Indeed," said a new voice at the doorway. "Not for many years have so many with such ... unique insights been assembled together."

"Mr. Molokov!" Elisabeth said. "I had thought that you had declined our invitation to take part."

"I have been ... persuaded that someone should represent an ... alternative perspective."

Florence wondered at that. Exactly how senior would whoever had "persuaded" him have had to be? Molokov had clearly been a high level KGB agent when she had met him years ago, and everything she had heard about him in the years since suggested he had weathered incoming and outgoing administrations with aplomb, rising ever higher in the ranks even as the organisation he was part of reconfigured around him.

"Well, this is excellent news," Elisabeth said. She pulled aside one of her runners and asked him to ensure that an extra chair was put out.

The next few minutes were a blizzard of activity that Florence was quite unused to; she was given a radio mic and a bulky transmitter attached to it that they clipped to the back of her belt -- "Be careful how you sit, please" -- and she was asked to provide a sound check. At a loss for what to say, she listed out the first few moves of the Reti opening. She saw Freddie, who was taking it all in stride, smiling. "Always one of your favourites," he said.

"Against you, at least," she shot back. "Developing my knights early on always used to throw you off your game."

"For a brief moment, perhaps," he conceded.

They went out onto the stage. The chairs were curved, and didn't look overly comfortable, but at least they were large enough that Florence could perch on the front of them and not worry about doing anything she shouldn't to her transmitter. She looked out at the audience. It seemed to be a mixture of locals -- was that the man from the railway station yesterday near the back? -- and chess fans with sufficient time and disposable income to make a special trip to come and listen to all this in person.

Elisabeth smiled at them all and began introducing them. "And we are very lucky indeed," she finished, "to be joined by Alexander Molokov, recently retired from his post as Senior Cultural Attaché at the Russian embassy in Paris."

Molokov nodded his head minutely. "An absolute pleasure, Miss Rainier."

"So, Freddie," Elisabeth said, turning to him, "at the time people said you had made chess exciting in a way it had never been before. Do you think your 'bad boy' image was well deserved?"

"Well, if by 'bad boy' you mean 'asshole' then yes, I was an asshole." Florence couldn't completely prevent herself smirking at Freddie's candour, but she didn't think any of the cameras were on her at that moment. But then Freddie broke off and said earnestly to Elisabeth, "Can I say 'asshole'? For TV, I mean?"

"Oh, sure," Elisabeth said. "Local networks can bleep it for daytime reruns, but most markets don't care that much about words like 'asshole' any more."

"So I'd have to call my old self a fucking shitstain before I got myself into trouble?" Freddie said.

A few members of the audience gasped at that; Florence could see Anatoly rolling his eyes.

"You're cutting all this bit out, though, right?" Freddie said. "Me asking whether--"

"Sure," Elisabeth said, "but we are wasting the time of the audience who are actually here with us. So let's get back on track," she said, fixing a slightly firmer smile on her face.

"I was an asshole," Freddie repeated. "But you know what the eighties were like. People liked assholes back then."

Elisabeth turned to Florence. "Is that true, Florence?" she asked. "Did _you_ like Freddie because he was an asshole?"

She took a moment to decide what to say. She certainly hadn't been expecting quite such a personal line of questioning, at least not so early on. Elisabeth had always been given to bold, decisive moves on the chess board, but back in her teenage years had never matched that with the way she'd spoken. "I liked him _despite_ him being an asshole," she managed. "Or ... whatever else he might decide to call himself. But, sure, I don't think it hurt his public image. He wasn't the same as most chess champions."

"Whereas Anatoly here--"

"--was a worthy world champion himself," Freddie interrupted. "He outplayed me, and then he outplayed Viigand the next year." Florence caught a significant look passing between the two men.

"But some might argue that you, Anatoly, were a 'bad boy' in your own way," Elisabeth said, suddenly switching her attention to him.

"He saw the error of his ways," Molokov put in.

"I don't think the defection is what she was talking about," Florence said quietly. She was beginning, far too late, to realise that Elisabeth wasn't going to go easy on any of them. The audience, too, seemed to paying much more attention all of a sudden.

"Ah, you mean--"

Florence glared at him.

Elisabeth pressed on with her questions to Anatoly. "You spent just a year in England, before the decision you made after the Bangkok tournament to return to the Soviet Union."

It was a long time before Anatoly replied. Florence could imagine that his hesitation would be removed for TV, wondered what impact it would have on the way his words came across, if it wasn't shown how carefully he had weighed them. "We all have decisions to make, in our lives. Some of them easy, some of them ..." He looked at Florence for a long moment, then averted his gaze again. "Some of them very difficult. All I ever wanted to do was to play chess, to the best of my ability."

Florence thought that she detected a slight smile in Elisabeth's eyes then, one that didn't reach her lips; she recognised it from the games they had played as Elisabeth had grown older, gaining confidence enough to try to seriously challenge Florence, and even sometimes beat her. But in this context, it meant something quite different: Florence knew that Elisabeth had found her key soundbite.

* * *

In the green room afterwards, no one spoke to one another, the tensions Elisabeth had deliberately stoked on stage still spilling over. Elisabeth had not returned to them, but nor had anyone come to tell them they were finished.

Florence felt the uncomfortably familiar sensation of having been manipulated. She shivered despite the warmth of the stuffy room.

"Well, I'm going back to the hotel," Freddie said, slapping his palms down on his knees. "Miss Rainier certainly got what she came for, I can at least get some free booze at the bar in exchange."

"For once, Mr Trumper, we are in agreement," Molokov said. They both began unhitching their microphones.

One of the runners followed them to make sure they didn't just abandon the microphones in the corridor, the other presumably to fetch Elisabeth.

And so, finally, Florence and Anatoly stood, just the two of them. The distance between them was only a metre or so, but the Iron Curtain might as well have never fallen given his body language.

"It was ... good to see you again," Florence said. The statement fell flat, felt wholly inadequate to her.

"I am a grandfather now," he said eventually. "I am not so old, really, you know that--" He paused for a moment "--but already a grandfather. Last year, my eldest -- a beautiful girl." And he reached into his pocket to find his wallet, showed her a small picture of him and Svetlana sat together, a little baby with a broad smile revealing a single tooth bouncing on Svetlana's lap.

"She is beautiful," Florence agreed.

"And you?" he asked.

"I keep myself busy."

"But you have never--"

"No," said Florence. "Like I said, I keep myself busy."

Florence wondered what he was thinking. Could he tell that she was imagining the life they might have had together, if he had stayed with her in Bangkok? Was he thinking the same? Would they have had children, or would that have been too painful for him?

So long ago now, a variation of their lives that could never be played out except in the imagination.

"And how is your father?" he asked.

"He is ..." She tried to answer, but found her breath catching in her throat. She blinked furiously to stop the tears welling in her eyes. "He is well, thank you. He is an old man now, but he has had many happy years living in America."

"I am most glad to hear it," Anatoly said, with great sincerity.

He had gone back for Svetlana and their children, knowing that a terrible fate awaited them if he did not, but he had gone back for Florence too, in the hope that by losing him she might gain her father back. That gambit, at least, had worked out as intended.

"Anatoly ..."

"Yes?"

But there was nothing to say. She knew him well enough to know that he had made his choice. She had known that for a long time, really. But it had still been good to see him.

"Florence," he said. "I ... There is something I should tell you. About what happened in Bangkok."

* * *

Back at the hotel, Freddie was indeed at the bar. There was a drink in front of him, but it didn't look as though he'd touched it at all.

Florence sat down next to him, and their eyes met in the mirror behind the bar.

"Your girl Elisabeth is no fool," he said.

"Oh, I don't think we can say she's my girl any more. If she ever was."

"Clearly not. And she's not mine, either, I want to be clear about that."

"None of my business, Freddie," Florence said. "None of my business at all."

"She got what she wanted," Freddie said. "I imagine her little show will do rather well for itself."

"Not just a schedule filler after all," Florence said.

"But I'm not sure any of the rest of us got what we wanted." He paused. "Or did you?"

"Anatoly's gone home already," she said. "If that's what you meant."

"Really?"

"He has a granddaughter, did you know that?" Florence said. "He showed me a picture."

"Home is where the heart is, I guess."

"I'm not sure any of us get to live where our hearts are. Not after everything. We just get to live." She turned away from the mirror and locked eyes with him directly. "Before he left, he told me something," Florence said.

"That's private between the two of you, I'm sure."

"No," Florence said. "Private between him and you."

Freddie looked confused for a moment, then the light of realisation dawned in his eyes.

"That was a good thing you did," Florence said.

"That whole panel discussion might have been a disaster, but what I said today was true. I _was_ an asshole back then."

"An asshole who's very good at chess," Florence said. "And so would be in a position to advise a world champion on the verge of defeat."

"We've already established that I'm an asshole," Freddie said. He looked up at her with possibly the most earnest expression she had ever seen on his face. "One good deed for Anatoly doesn't cancel that out. I was an asshole for years."

"I know, Freddie, I was there for seven of them."

He sighed. "I can't believe you put up with me for so long," he said. "I'm not sure I would have put up with me."

"You weren't putting up with yourself," Florence said. "That was part of the problem. You were throwing it all out there for other people to put up with instead."

"You might be right," he said.

"I _am_ right," Florence said. "That was what I liked, remember? Being able to show you things you hadn't thought of yourself."

"Molokov ..." Freddie said, unexpectedly.

"What about him?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. "He gave me this. To give to you." He slid it across the bar so that it lay in between them.

"What is it?"

"The old Soviet file on your father, he told me."

"Have you read it?"

"Would it make a difference if I had?"

"Freddie, don't mess around with me. _Have you read it?_ "

"No," he said. "I won't pretend I wasn't tempted. But--"

"Why would Molokov give it to you?"

"Because he likes to fuck with people's heads, is my guess. That's what his whole career was about, wasn't it? But he said there were things you should know, before ..." He looked away. "Florence, is your father sick?"

"He's been sick for a long time," Florence said. "But, yes, he's really sick now."

Freddie nodded. "That's why you needed the money, from this ... hatchet job."

Florence put her hand on the envelope. "What do you think I should do?"

"Burn it," Freddie said suddenly, fiercely. Florence felt her eyes going wide. "You were lucky, Florence. Neither of us had a father growing up. But yours was someone you could look up to. Someone you could be proud of. Maybe Molokov's just fucking with you, maybe everything in there is just more evidence of what a great guy he was. But don't risk destroying the way you feel about him, not after all this time. Not now."

Florence picked the envelope up, turned it over in her hands.

"I'm going to go to my room now," she said.

Freddie nodded. "You want me to make us reservations for dinner? You could eat in the restaurant tonight."

"Sure, why not?"

* * *

She hadn't paid any particular attention to them last night, but she quickly realised that the hotel had just as many no smoking signs and fire alarms as any in America. In the end, determined to take what might be the only piece of good advice Freddie had ever given her, she found herself leaning out of a window, flicking the lighter she'd obtained from reception repeatedly to get it to spark, holding the still-unopened envelope as far away as she could.

Finally, it caught, and the breeze began to pick up the smoke and ash. As the flames licked higher, she dropped it, and watched it burn as it fell.

The last thing she saw before it turned to nothing more than floating cinders was a black and white photograph of her father, almost the way he appeared in her distant childhood memories.

* * *

The meal, and the wine accompanying it, was fantastic. The company was ... unexpectedly good, though perhaps that was the effect of the wine.

"What would you say if I told you I went into therapy?" Freddie said at one point.

"I'd say that you've always been a terrible liar."

"So it wouldn't make a difference?"

"To what?"

"To how you feel about me."

Florence picked up her wine glass and swirled it around, inhaling the bouquet. She took a sip and then finally said, "And how _do_ you think I feel about you, Mr Trumper?"

"Well, you're here," Freddie said.

"I am here."

"And I'm here."

Florence sighed, then leaned back. "We both know where the pieces are on the board, Freddie. I'm asking you what you see a dozen moves ahead."

Freddie laughed.

"Two pawns, neglected while the other pieces fight it out. One who looked like he might be going somewhere but ended up trapped, and one who ... crossed the board. Which means that now finally she's ready to be a queen."

"The endgame was always your strongest point," Florence said.

"Openings are boring, just playing it by rote. Midgames are messy, too many variations. But when it all comes down to a few pieces, duking it out, knowing you can _force_ the win."

"And can you force the win in this situation?"

"No," Freddie said. "And I'm finding I don't mind that as much as I might."

"Despite all your worries about draw death?"

"If two perfectly matched players, playing perfectly, can always force a draw, then the whole game becomes ... very boring, wouldn't you say?"

Florence smirked. "Are you finally acknowledging me as your equal?"

"I don't know, are you saying that we're both playing perfectly?"

"I don't think we've ever managed that." She considered. "But I don't think it necessarily has to be the endgame yet. I think we might be part of an altogether slower game."

"Oh?" Freddie said.

"Two pawns, sure," Florence said. "I think our old friends Messrs Molokov and de Courcey could hardly let us admit anything else. But what if we just missed each other all this time?"

He picked up the thread. "And now we're going to capture, _en passant_?"

"I'm not going to come to your room with you, Freddie," she said.

His face fell, minutely.

"But ... I've made a decision. I'm going to go back to Budapest. I could use some company. Are you doing anything for the next week or so?"

"Nothing I can't cancel."

She thought about her father's stories again, imagined what it would be like to share them with someone else. Someone who had never had a father worthy of the name. That would be far better than going on from here alone, wouldn't it? Keeping the memories alive was by far the best rejoinder to Molokov's attempted manipulations.

"We can play chess on the train, if you'd like. It's been a while, maybe I can surprise you."

Freddie considered. "The Reti opening?"

"Well, that wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" she said. "But perhaps."

His eyes darted upwards, to the chessboard that was always there in his head. "Mate in sixteen," he said eventually.

Florence smiled at him. "We'll see."


End file.
